Adam Karelin is a composer, trombonist, and conductor based in Los Angeles. He is currently a student at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he studies composition with Donald Crockett and conducting with Larry Livingston. He has previously studied composition with Andrew Norman and Ted Hearne, and trombone with Terry Cravens. As an exchange student at the Sibelius Academy, Adam also studied composition with Tapio Tuomela and trombone with Olav Severeide.
Adam’s music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, The Lyris Quartet, Aperture Duo, Yellow Barn Young Artists, New World Symphony Fellows, and others. Since beginning composition study with Brett Banducci in 2015, Adam has participated in the Young Musicians Foundation Young Composers Program, the Sunset ChamberFest Young Composers Workshop, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Associate Composer Program, North Hollywood High School’s Composer Fellowship, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute under the direction of Martin Amlin and Justin Casinghino, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program studying with Andrew Norman and Sarah Gibson, the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, and the Hear Now Music Festival. In 2019, he was named a National YoungArts Finalist in Classical Music Composition, and received the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Award.
As a trombonist, Adam has played with the USC Thornton Symphony, Wind Ensemble, Brass Ensemble, Trombone Choir, Baroque Sinfonia, and Concerto Chamber Orchestra. An avid advocate for new music, he has played in the world premieres of many of his contemporaries, and has performed regularly with the USC Thornton Edge Contemporary Ensemble. He has also played in a masterclass for David Rejano and studied privately with Noah Gladstone.
Adam currently serves as the music director of the USC Concerto Chamber Orchestra. In 2020, he was awarded a conducting fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival. Since his debut with his high school’s Brass Ensemble in 2016, he has served as Drum Major of the Marching Band under the direction of Robin Sharp and Dylan Campbell, worked as the conducting intern with the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, and conducted the New Symphony Orchestra at the International Conducting Workshop and Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, studying with Larry Rachleff and Donald Schleicher.